A number of assured fuel supply proposals are under international consideration for theprovision of front end nuclear fuel cycle services. Three "fuel bank" proposals are movingtoward implementation -- (the IAEA/NTI fuel bank, the Russian bank at Angarsk, and theAmerican Fuel Supply (AFS) reserve, all of which provide for reserves of low enriched uranium(LEU). In order to be effective, a system of fuel assurance mechanisms must account for thedelivery of fabricated fuel assemblies. Fabrication is in fact the step in the supply chain that willdetermine the extent of substitution among fuel vendors possible in the event of an interruptionof supply, whether for technical or political reasons.Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has been assessing the reliability of fuel supplyfrom the perspective of technical and non-technical (i.e. country level) redundancy among fuelvendors. This work has entailed modeling outages of varying durations at particular fabricationplants, thus characterizing the ability of the market to accommodate unforeseeable disruptions inthe fabrication sector itself. This work has been done using discrete-event simulation to modelthe re-assignment of fuel reload production to alternative fabrication plants based on definedoutage scenarios. The results enable visualization of the effects of outages - specifically thefeasibility of shifting assembly production to alternate plants, constrained by various sets ofassumptions on their capabilities to produce specific fuel designs for specific reactors.Developing a clearer picture of the plants, reactors and countries vulnerable to supply disruptionenables us both [1] to predict confidently that industry mechanisms could be expected to adapt tophysical or political circumstances and provide fabricated fuel on an assured basis, or [2] toidentify measures (either by industry alone or with possible involvement bygovernmental/multilateral agencies) that would add to fuel supply chain reliability.
展开▼
